City of Albany Takes Tech to the Streets

The City of Albany Department of General Services (DGS) is responsible for year-round services to “insure that the City’s streetscapes, parks infrastructure, public facilities and natural resources are maintained to be functional, safe, clean, attractive and convenient for residents and visitors alike.” Maintaining an operation of such a large size requires careful planning, hard work, and the appropriate tools for each job. It also generates a lot of paperwork.

The Challenge

Difficulty organizing forms and excessive paper

The Code Enforcement division was particularly inundated with paper records relating to public health and safety violations. Each violation required a DGS employee to manually fill out a paper form as well as take photos as evidence. Linking the form and photos later at Headquarters was difficult and slowed processing. Keeping individuals with repeated violations accountable was nearly impossible, and neighboring residents’ quality of life suffered as a result. Generating such a high volume of paper was also a concern for the environmentally conscious department, which has a robust recycling system.

Completed forms are submitted from the field with the touch of a digital button. They are routed via Wi-Fi to DGS’ servers where they are imported into electronic document management software called Cabinet SAFE. Cabinet SAFE (or simply “SAFE”) acts as a digital filing cabinet with the added benefits of document sharing, security, and automated workflow.

But generating paperwork was only part of the problem. DGS had a room of filing cabinets filled with archive records with strict retention requirements. In order to be completely free from paper, these records also had to be digitized. The solution: high speed Kodak scanners with Perfect Page technology. Perfect Page ensures that the first scan is the last scan by performing image processing such as automatic reorientation, deskew, and despeckle on each page at scan time.

Because Kodak scanners integrate with SAFE, DGS was able to scan their archives directly into their document management solution.

The Results

Reduced paper, improved efficiency, simplified accessibility

Since adopting a digital solution, the City of Albany DGS has dramatically improved the efficiency of their document management. In-the-field data collection is more accurate, reporting and processing time is faster, and access to documents is easier – all while minimizing the environmental impact of printed paper. Most importantly, digital document management has also helped the Department of General Services ensure an adequate quality of life for all City of Albany residents.

About eBizDocs

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